An article in Time Magazine speaks of a well known writer’s crusade against anything religious. Here’s how it starts: Christopher Hitchens once devoted an entire book to portraying Mother Teresa as a phony, so perhaps Billy Graham got off easy when Hitchens described him, in a recent C-Span appearance, as “a self-conscious fraud,” who didn’t believe a word of what he preached, but was just in business for the money. The celebrated atheist, whose latest polemic, God Is Not Great:… Read more

I love reading advice columnists. Many letters from those seeking advice start with a phrase something like this: “My wife/husband/child/parent/significant other is charming, good-looking, adorable, nearly perfect in every way but. . . ”. The “but” often indicates some behavior, generally but not always done in private, that the letter-writer finds offensive or disgusting or horrifying or immoral or simply troubling and not resolvable. Sometimes the letter-writer just needs to learn some tolerance and lighten up a bit. Often, however,… Read more

I was hurriedly running an errand when my phone began to buzz. Grabbed it and saw a text message from my youngest son with these cryptic words: “I am safe from the fire. No worries.” Now THOSE are words intended to calm a mother’s heart! Right. Heart rate probably reached 200 in those few seconds. I stopped the car, tried to phone him and couldn’t get through. A few minutes later, he reached me and said, “We think there was… Read more

What is this all about? What is “Holy Week” anyway? What’s the big deal? Is there more to this than plastic eggs with little surprises in them and new clothes? Although I’ve been a church-goer most of my life, the much of the reasoning for this spring celebration with the changeable date escaped me most of that time. The week starts off with such joy– We’ve seen it—Jesus entering the holy city with victory and adulation! What excitement we feel… Read more